carthaginian
#605 – Gene Gisco
Born 166 BC in Carthage as a barracks slave, Gene was freed by Gaius Marius after saving his life during the Jugurthine Wars, becoming a loyal bodyguard to the Consul.
RomanPunks is a retrofuturistic, cyberpunk derivative world-building project inspired by fine art, history and the cryptopunk movement.
A total of 1,000 RomanPunk characters have been frozen in time and minted as Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum, WAX, Polygon and Algorand blockchains.
RomanPunk characters are comprised of commoners and famous individuals based on Roman history, art history and pop culture.
The basis for RomanPunk lore and backstories is exhaustively researched by history/sci-fi buff and co-founder, Punktavian.
All images are drawn by hand by woman artist and co-founder, Cleopunktra, without the aid of AI or generative tools.
RomanPunks came into existence through early minting on OpenSea, promoting on Twitter and building a Discord community through giveaways and engagement. The idea of a cyberpunk-derivative ‘RomanPunk’ theme was in our heads for years, but it was the success of the Cryptopunks that became the catalyst for project conception and launch.
After a hard working first 60 days spent networking and attracting new collectors to RomanPunks, our community had begun to flourish and sales increased. We began to offer our collectors an opportunity to battle their NFTs in a tournament bracket powered by dice rolls.
Encouraged by the tight knit community and the carbon-neutral blockchain with lightning fast and low cost transactions, we launched 'romanpunksio' collection on WAX Blockchain as the first step to expand the backstories of our RomanPunk characters and the baseline for future development of a card game.
RomanPunks integrated with Chainlink Labs to utilize VRF (Verified Randomness Function) to host a giveaway raffle for our holders. We developed a smart contract on Ethereum which guarantees true random number selection on chain and can be used for a wide range of functions that require random selection.
After much anticipation in the community, we released our first WAX NFT card 'pack' through the Neftyblocks platform, which sold out in less than a week.
We launched our Twitch channel and begun building an audience by offering numerous giveaways of WAX NFTs from our collection, as well as giving participants a chance to win RomanPunk ETH NFT airdrops for taking top spot at the end of the 'season'.
As firm believers in a metaverse future and land owners in The Sandbox, we undertook to build the RomanPunk Colosseum on 1x1 land and entered our experience "Gladiator Bloodsport" into a GameJam contest. We will continue to build the Colosseum into a PVP arena and social hub once The Sandbox offers creators the ability to do so.
Thanks to the user friendly tools offered by NeftyBlocks, we launched a comprehensive blending system on WAX, allowing our collectors to blend the common NFTs they earn in our Discord RPG up into Legendary famous NFTs through the use of blending 'coins' that can also be earned on the Discord as reward for helping to promote the RomanPunks project.
We launched the VX collection on Polygon. Each owner of an ETH NFT gets their voxel equivalent airdropped to them, and these NFTs can be redeemed for official NFTs on The Sandbox Marketplace once available.
All 1,000 original, unique 1:1 RomanPunk characters hand drawn by Cleopunktra and minted on OpenSea.
The RomanPunk WAX NFT Trading Card Fighter Pack Series II consists of 3 NFTs randomly selected from over 236 characters.
Upcoming plans for RomanPunks include:
Below is a comprehensive and searchable directory of all 1,000 RomanPunk Characters.
Born 166 BC in Carthage as a barracks slave, Gene was freed by Gaius Marius after saving his life during the Jugurthine Wars, becoming a loyal bodyguard to the Consul.
Born in 275 BC in Cyrene, Sisa became an expert fighter thanks to an advanced holographic training simulator from the 28th century AD left by her estranged father. Sisa joined the army, helping Hamilcar defeat the Romans in Sicily where she escaped through an interdimensional portal on Mount Eryx to seek out her father.
Born in 303 BC in Terme on the coast of the Black Sea, Deborah is an Amazonian warrior who portaled to the women-dominated 28th century AD to battle aliens and cyborgs in a futuristic cybercolosseum.
Born in 431 AD in Hippo Regius to a Vandal marauder and a Roman nun, Brunhilda was an acrobatic performer pressed into service as a gladiator after all the fighting men were dispatched to sack Rome for the 3rd time.
Born 275 BC in Ancyra, as a child Dania was abducted by aliens and pressed into planetary defense service in a distant solar system.
Born 213 BC in Rome, Cambria and her sister Ursula were born with silver spoons in their mouths. Cambria, who had a history of brawling in the streets in her youth, was installed by her patrician father as a military commander in a reserve unit to keep her busy and out of trouble.
Born in 217 AD in Caesarea, Mavis, a servant of the Temple of Saturn at Thugga, uttered an experimental incantation, opening an interdimensional portal that transported her to a parallel world set in an atomic age in which she became enslaved as a gladiator.
Born 95 BC in Perinthus, Leo fought alongside Spartacus before being captured and forced into gladiatorial combat. Renowned for slaying the most zombies in a single bout, his moment of greatest triumph was interrupted when his consciousness was ‘freejacked’ by time-traffickers to 23rd century AD Britannia. Now, he battles in a cloned body for the Interdimensional Cybergladiator League (ICL), as part of the AlgoSaxons, a squad sponsored by the Algorand Foundation.
Born 121 BC in Jutland, Cindi was a defiant warrior captured and enslaved by Gaius Marius at the Battle of Vercellae. Refusing to submit to concubinage, she was dispatched to an atomic age alternate dimension where she toils as a scullery maid and comfortess in a high-altitude air cruise liner zeppelin.
Born 201 BC in Petra, Gamila was a servant of at the Temple of Dushara. One day she spoke a strange incantation which opened an interdimensional portal that transported her to a 28th century AD alternate dimension where she was forced to fight as a gladiator.
Born 1972 AD in Larissa, Teren was a videographer hired to shoot a routine military transport—until his footage captured something the Empire couldn’t allow to exist. Scrubbed from the records and marked for deletion, he fled with the raw files and a camera too old to track. Now he drifts between safehouses, haunted by what he filmed and unsure whether he’s chasing justice or just trying to prove he still exists.
Born in 358 AD in Brigantium, Spubler is a florist turned soldier who passed through a portal in the Tower of Hercules to the 12th century AD where he fought a guerilla campaign against the Moors who disavowed the cultivation of roses.
Born 2172 AD in Iuvavum, Elsa is an eccentric toy-maker known for her Pet Gremlins, quirky animatronic creatures that have taken the universe by storm. She runs a toy boutique in the souk of Neo-Carthage, where her creations mock the Roman elite with satirical designs that poke fun at emperors, governors, and high-ranking officials. Each gremlin is a playful, biting critique wrapped in bright colors and mischievous grins, offering customers a chance to own a piece of subversive art disguised as a toy.
Born 170 BC in Damascus, Daro is a bastard son of Antiochus IV and a time-traveling geisha from the 22nd century. Now, Daro travels across dimensions in search of his biological mother.
Born 1955 AD in Tolosa, Ricki is a hairdresser, gossip, and fan of Italo disco who mixed up her cell phone for an interdimensional portal device and was transferred to the 1st century AD where she continues to cut hair and spread rumours in the public baths.
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